Butler-Turner: ‘How Can Someone Just Get A Nolle?’

“How can someone just get a nolle?” is the question Free National Movement deputy leader Loretta Butler-Turner put to parliamentarians yesterday.

Addressing the sentencing guidelines in the use of firearms under the Firearms Amendment Bill, the MP for Long Island was concerned about the messages that might have been sent to the public as a consequence of the court’s controversial discontinuation of a gun case that was recently near completion in the Magistrate’s Court.

The “nolle” referred to yesterday involved George and Janice Hayles who each faced a charge of possession of a firearm and ammunition, after police said they were found with a .380 pistol and 19 live rounds for the weapon.

The accused, represented by Allyson Maynard-Gibson before her appointment as Attorney General, pleaded not guilty to the charges at their arraignment days after their arrest in 2010.

The discontinuation of the charges took place last year on Friday, December 28.

The document bore Education Minister Jerome Fitzgerald’s signature because Mrs Maynard-Gibson was out of the country at the time. He was delegated to act on her behalf.